I have come up with a fairly devious plot twist which I would like to throw at the players. It's all a bit rough right now but I want it to work on both a "I'm the DM so it does" and a meta-knowledge level.
The basic concept is that there will be an NPC who is helping the party (guiding them and giving them information) who will ultimately meet their demise somewhere near a dragons horde or similar pile of shiny objects. I aim to make the NPC loved by the party, helpful, probably elderly and "cute", with a funny voice. All the things to make them want to save the NPC.
Then I want the party to heal the NPC - this relies on one party member getting access to Ressurection - the trick won't work without it, so it's going to be somethign I can put into play as soon as this spell comes up. The horde is there to provide enough diamonds to make one worth 1000gp feel like a small price to pay.
But when they ressurrect the NPC, there will be something wrong. The NPC will turn sinisterly evil, and use magic they hadn't had before to steal a great swathe of the horde and disappear.
The plot which will unfold at this point, when they go back to another NPC who knew them, that the NPC was a potent sorceror - the most powerful they had seen. So powerful that they performed a dangerous maneuver to isolate a part of their brain from the rest, neutering their powers. By ressurrecting them, they fixed the damage and unleashed this pent-up alter-ego, who will become the next BBEG, wme plot or another, for the party to take down.
This will all be situational to make happen and I will have backups lined up for if they don't ressurrect them and so on, so it won't be a railroad - just something to have in my back pocket if things should fall into place. My question, really, is how to make an NPC so loved that the party will save them? How do I bait this trap?
Unhelpful answer, but it's really hard to predict what players will latch onto, and it's going to be hard to pin a major plot point not only on players feeling a certain way but acting a certain way based off that feeling.
More helpful answer: there's a few approaches you can try, depending on what you know of your party. In my experience with my group of more serious roleplayers, I find they feel a certain bond with npc's they've saved or helped out in some way. It makes them feel like good guys to make sure the people they save are doing well and build relationships with them. Otherwise, don't underestimate the silliness factor. I have two NPC's in two campaigns that are both fairly beloved, both of whom I have ridiculous voices and belligerent personalities. One is a paranoid megalomaniac bullywug lab supervisor at Strixhaven and the other is a village elder from out in the sticks who's absolutely certain the crystal orb the players gave him in exchange for his services as a guide actually IS a supremely powerful magical artifact like they told him, despite all evidence to the contrary. Giving NPC's these big characteristics does a lot to draw players in, and then once they're in you can add further dimension to the character if desired.
A good idea is to be flexible about which NPC. Players are unpredictable, and can get attached to NPCs you don’t expect. Whichever NPC they like and interact with- that’s the NPC.
Recurrence is also important. If you involve them in multiple encounters, the players will probably have a better connection with them.
Another tip is have the NPC be unique or unusual in some way. My favorite NPC as a player is Walt, a sea dinosaur who was magically given intelligence. My players really like Nathanial, a friendly Nothic who joined forces with another favorite- Tab the Baxi driver.
Elderly and cute might not work as well as fun and quirky- someone who is fun to play and interact with, may contribute to their adventures at some point, and brings out the players roleplaying with the right questions. Yes, they’ll want to save elderly and cute, but they may not go as far as resurrecting them. If they really have fun with the NPC, good, memorable conversations, then their death will hit harder and resurrection will be a question of how, not if.
As others have said, they may not get attached to this NPC
What happens when they resurrect him sounds interesting... on the inside. But for the PCs, what they see is this:
Bob the cute funny old guy dies (sad times)
They cast Raise Dead (so they are at least level 9 when this happens, so this would be Arc 2 or Arc 3 of a campaign running for more than a year in all likelihood)
Bob gets up, and steals some treasure and vanishes.
That is all they get to see. There is no way for them to know any of the other stuff.
Unless the players were SUPER attached to Bob, and somehow manage to work out that something has gone wrong, all they see is that Bob was actually a ****** all along, and he made off with a load of the treasure.
I don't think that this would motivate my players to go seek Bob out. He's not in any trouble, he's not doing anything dangerous, he just disappeared.
If you want to corrupt an NPC then I'd say you can do it in a way more heart-rending way:
To stop the BBEG ritual, one of them has to throw themselves into the magic vortex. Bob does it. But he comes out changed
To stop the BBEG, someone has to make a pact with Asmodeus. Bob sacrifices himself. But now he's back...
Ultimately with your current strategy, Bob the NPC is dead. He was never his true self. There is nobody to save. It's just a shame that Bob was a bad guy all along.
A good idea is to be flexible about which NPC. Players are unpredictable, and can get attached to NPCs you don’t expect. Whichever NPC they like and interact with- that’s the NPC.
I agree with this. It gives the players more agency in the story. If the NPC doesn't make sense as the sorcerer, have the NPC be possessed by the spirit of the sorcerer. If it's a body possession thing then you don't have to wait for them to resurrect the character. Have the villain give a little monologue to explain what's happened, and then the players will be interested in pursuing to get the body of their friend back.
I think I might pinch a bit from the last three Star Wars Films and the first Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic video game......
First off seed hints of a powerful Wizard trying to do something ridiculously bad such as become a lich, ascend to godhood, merge the planes etc, this can be some foreshadowing so the party think thats the next story arch. What the wizard has actually done is create a Clone. This Clone is the NPC that has been very helpful to the party.
The Clone spell used was specially created by the Wizard and inparted the Clone with some innate magical power whilst also grafting memories into it (think of a combined Clone/Modify Memory ritual spell), the Clone was sent out into the world with all the Wizards youngest memories (childhood through to mid 20's) and became its own persona and developed as a Sorcerer as the innate magics manifested.
There may be more thasn one of these Clones and the Wizard can use Scrying spells to observe through them and uses them as spies and, thanks to various Divination spells, latches the Clones onto adventurers/mercenaries that might rise to become powerful enough to challenge him in the future.
Each Clone acts as a magical battery, a few minutes after the the Clone body dies it 'explodes' in a sphere of darkness which lasts a few seconds and anyone caught in its sphere of effect feels a sudden feeling of being pulled, like gravity is trying to suck them towards the epicentre.
When darkness lifts a Shadow (as per the Undead) stands where the NPC was previoously laying but the area around them is now empty having been teleported to the Wizards location, have anyone in the area of affect take some necrotic damage and if anyone queires why they haven't been transported with everything else it's because the teleportation circle style effect only takes unliving things that aren't being worn or carried. The Wizard then speaks via the Shadow and insert darstardly monologue.
This telportaion effect is the Wizards way of 'forensically' cleaning the area where a clone dies removing as much evidence as possible. Any dead bodies that get picked up with the teleportation effect are either reanimated as undead or otherwise disposed of whilst valuable items are horded and non-valuable items trashed.
The next arch of the story can then be tracking down other clones and trying to find out wherw the Wizard is. As each Clone is found/killed the same teleportation effect happens and eventually when the party track down the Wizard they find the clones all hooked into a magical apparatus which the Wizard is using to fuel its ascension to whatever form you desire. Then in the final fight these batteries can act as either lair effects or additional spell slots for the wizard.
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I get that you're trying to make the resurrection the catalyst so that it feels like result of player agency, but it could come across as railroady or unfair without foreshadowing. Without it, it's kind of a sucker punch that a well-intentioned and costly attempt to save a beloved NPC would "backfire" for seemingly no reason. I highly recommend you hint at the NPC's history or introduce wild magic/spirit interference prior to the death that gives the players clues that things could go wrong. The last thing you want is for a cool plot twist to turn into a source of bitterness for the players. "The clues were there, you just didn't ask the right questions," is much easier to swallow than, "I tricked you!" when you're dealing with serious consequences that are your character's fault.
As for the bait...I'd ensure they have tons of diamonds beforehand. Players hoard consumables. I'd also have the NPC really help them out or sacrifice for them repeatedly so the resurrection is seen as a small repayment for the help/affection they've been given along the way. As others have said, make sure whatever NPC they latch onto frequently spends time with the party in meaningful and heartfelt ways. And then make the death tug on their heartstrings. If the death is their fault (maybe the NPC jumps in the way of a trap they set off to try to shield them), it's even better.
The plot twist sounds a bit like "The Lazarus Effect" on the surface and could be a fun plot line to explore and drop in on the players.
Logistically, there's a level of uncertainty about how, why and where all of this would play out. Plenty of folks have commented on the attachment to the NPC quandry, but aside from that, there is no guarantee that the party will resurrect the NPC at the horde location before they have secured the loot. Spending a spell slot of 7th level or higher is a significant dedication of resources and may not be one that is available to the party at the time. Revivify has a one minute window, Resurrection does not. They have a century to revive the fallen NPC and all of it's missing body parts will be restored at that time. Depending on your restrictions, as the DM, on the spell, they might only need a fingernail and a time limit of 100 years. There's nothing stopping them from taking a ring finger back to town in a pouch and performing a relatively taxing spell in a comfortable and secure environment away from the horde. Even if you require them to have a majority of the remains, they can still be carted back to town and re-assembled there.
I can see the plot twist being centered around the NPC demeanor change, but the specifics of returning them to a living status and the location being a requirement might be seen as the DM forcing the plot once the reveal has been made. I can get behind allowing them to have access to the tools to do so, and should they choose to ressurrect the NPC on site, I might suggest that the ordeal of coming back from the dead could possibly delay the immediate return of the previous personality. Maybe let this one drag out over the course of a couple of days/weeks of in game time.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Does the NPC aid the party at all? When I play lost mine of Phandelver, the players latched on to the goblin Droop, and I have no idea why, so I gave him a proper character sheet and he joined in with fights, providing some damage and aid, but no where near enough to really make it an extra party member. He died in a big fight and the players couldn't resurrect him fast enough (much to my dismay, I thought I had finally got rid of him!). Maybe let the players decide what his actions could be in combat, or give him some minor healing capabilities so he is an asset to them, not just a plot device. Maybe they go to a dungeon and he knows how to say a magic spell to open a door to some treasure, but he dies mid-dungeon triggering your plot twist. I really like this idea, I might have to steal it as I have an NPC guiding my party every so often when they venture back to the main city.
I would say, try to pick up clues whether they have latched onto them, do they cure wounds them if they take damage in a fight or leave them to sort themselves?
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I have come up with a fairly devious plot twist which I would like to throw at the players. It's all a bit rough right now but I want it to work on both a "I'm the DM so it does" and a meta-knowledge level.
The basic concept is that there will be an NPC who is helping the party (guiding them and giving them information) who will ultimately meet their demise somewhere near a dragons horde or similar pile of shiny objects. I aim to make the NPC loved by the party, helpful, probably elderly and "cute", with a funny voice. All the things to make them want to save the NPC.
Then I want the party to heal the NPC - this relies on one party member getting access to Ressurection - the trick won't work without it, so it's going to be somethign I can put into play as soon as this spell comes up. The horde is there to provide enough diamonds to make one worth 1000gp feel like a small price to pay.
But when they ressurrect the NPC, there will be something wrong. The NPC will turn sinisterly evil, and use magic they hadn't had before to steal a great swathe of the horde and disappear.
The plot which will unfold at this point, when they go back to another NPC who knew them, that the NPC was a potent sorceror - the most powerful they had seen. So powerful that they performed a dangerous maneuver to isolate a part of their brain from the rest, neutering their powers. By ressurrecting them, they fixed the damage and unleashed this pent-up alter-ego, who will become the next BBEG, wme plot or another, for the party to take down.
This will all be situational to make happen and I will have backups lined up for if they don't ressurrect them and so on, so it won't be a railroad - just something to have in my back pocket if things should fall into place. My question, really, is how to make an NPC so loved that the party will save them? How do I bait this trap?
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Unhelpful answer, but it's really hard to predict what players will latch onto, and it's going to be hard to pin a major plot point not only on players feeling a certain way but acting a certain way based off that feeling.
More helpful answer: there's a few approaches you can try, depending on what you know of your party. In my experience with my group of more serious roleplayers, I find they feel a certain bond with npc's they've saved or helped out in some way. It makes them feel like good guys to make sure the people they save are doing well and build relationships with them. Otherwise, don't underestimate the silliness factor. I have two NPC's in two campaigns that are both fairly beloved, both of whom I have ridiculous voices and belligerent personalities. One is a paranoid megalomaniac bullywug lab supervisor at Strixhaven and the other is a village elder from out in the sticks who's absolutely certain the crystal orb the players gave him in exchange for his services as a guide actually IS a supremely powerful magical artifact like they told him, despite all evidence to the contrary. Giving NPC's these big characteristics does a lot to draw players in, and then once they're in you can add further dimension to the character if desired.
Hope that helps!
A good idea is to be flexible about which NPC. Players are unpredictable, and can get attached to NPCs you don’t expect. Whichever NPC they like and interact with- that’s the NPC.
Recurrence is also important. If you involve them in multiple encounters, the players will probably have a better connection with them.
Another tip is have the NPC be unique or unusual in some way. My favorite NPC as a player is Walt, a sea dinosaur who was magically given intelligence. My players really like Nathanial, a friendly Nothic who joined forces with another favorite- Tab the Baxi driver.
Elderly and cute might not work as well as fun and quirky- someone who is fun to play and interact with, may contribute to their adventures at some point, and brings out the players roleplaying with the right questions. Yes, they’ll want to save elderly and cute, but they may not go as far as resurrecting them. If they really have fun with the NPC, good, memorable conversations, then their death will hit harder and resurrection will be a question of how, not if.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
I don't think that this would motivate my players to go seek Bob out. He's not in any trouble, he's not doing anything dangerous, he just disappeared.
If you want to corrupt an NPC then I'd say you can do it in a way more heart-rending way:
Ultimately with your current strategy, Bob the NPC is dead. He was never his true self. There is nobody to save. It's just a shame that Bob was a bad guy all along.
Is that satisfying?
I agree with this. It gives the players more agency in the story. If the NPC doesn't make sense as the sorcerer, have the NPC be possessed by the spirit of the sorcerer. If it's a body possession thing then you don't have to wait for them to resurrect the character. Have the villain give a little monologue to explain what's happened, and then the players will be interested in pursuing to get the body of their friend back.
I think I might pinch a bit from the last three Star Wars Films and the first Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic video game......
First off seed hints of a powerful Wizard trying to do something ridiculously bad such as become a lich, ascend to godhood, merge the planes etc, this can be some foreshadowing so the party think thats the next story arch. What the wizard has actually done is create a Clone. This Clone is the NPC that has been very helpful to the party.
The Clone spell used was specially created by the Wizard and inparted the Clone with some innate magical power whilst also grafting memories into it (think of a combined Clone/Modify Memory ritual spell), the Clone was sent out into the world with all the Wizards youngest memories (childhood through to mid 20's) and became its own persona and developed as a Sorcerer as the innate magics manifested.
There may be more thasn one of these Clones and the Wizard can use Scrying spells to observe through them and uses them as spies and, thanks to various Divination spells, latches the Clones onto adventurers/mercenaries that might rise to become powerful enough to challenge him in the future.
Each Clone acts as a magical battery, a few minutes after the the Clone body dies it 'explodes' in a sphere of darkness which lasts a few seconds and anyone caught in its sphere of effect feels a sudden feeling of being pulled, like gravity is trying to suck them towards the epicentre.
When darkness lifts a Shadow (as per the Undead) stands where the NPC was previoously laying but the area around them is now empty having been teleported to the Wizards location, have anyone in the area of affect take some necrotic damage and if anyone queires why they haven't been transported with everything else it's because the teleportation circle style effect only takes unliving things that aren't being worn or carried. The Wizard then speaks via the Shadow and insert darstardly monologue.
This telportaion effect is the Wizards way of 'forensically' cleaning the area where a clone dies removing as much evidence as possible. Any dead bodies that get picked up with the teleportation effect are either reanimated as undead or otherwise disposed of whilst valuable items are horded and non-valuable items trashed.
The next arch of the story can then be tracking down other clones and trying to find out wherw the Wizard is. As each Clone is found/killed the same teleportation effect happens and eventually when the party track down the Wizard they find the clones all hooked into a magical apparatus which the Wizard is using to fuel its ascension to whatever form you desire. Then in the final fight these batteries can act as either lair effects or additional spell slots for the wizard.
I get that you're trying to make the resurrection the catalyst so that it feels like result of player agency, but it could come across as railroady or unfair without foreshadowing. Without it, it's kind of a sucker punch that a well-intentioned and costly attempt to save a beloved NPC would "backfire" for seemingly no reason. I highly recommend you hint at the NPC's history or introduce wild magic/spirit interference prior to the death that gives the players clues that things could go wrong. The last thing you want is for a cool plot twist to turn into a source of bitterness for the players. "The clues were there, you just didn't ask the right questions," is much easier to swallow than, "I tricked you!" when you're dealing with serious consequences that are your character's fault.
As for the bait...I'd ensure they have tons of diamonds beforehand. Players hoard consumables. I'd also have the NPC really help them out or sacrifice for them repeatedly so the resurrection is seen as a small repayment for the help/affection they've been given along the way. As others have said, make sure whatever NPC they latch onto frequently spends time with the party in meaningful and heartfelt ways. And then make the death tug on their heartstrings. If the death is their fault (maybe the NPC jumps in the way of a trap they set off to try to shield them), it's even better.
Logistically, there's a level of uncertainty about how, why and where all of this would play out. Plenty of folks have commented on the attachment to the NPC quandry, but aside from that, there is no guarantee that the party will resurrect the NPC at the horde location before they have secured the loot. Spending a spell slot of 7th level or higher is a significant dedication of resources and may not be one that is available to the party at the time. Revivify has a one minute window, Resurrection does not. They have a century to revive the fallen NPC and all of it's missing body parts will be restored at that time. Depending on your restrictions, as the DM, on the spell, they might only need a fingernail and a time limit of 100 years. There's nothing stopping them from taking a ring finger back to town in a pouch and performing a relatively taxing spell in a comfortable and secure environment away from the horde. Even if you require them to have a majority of the remains, they can still be carted back to town and re-assembled there.
I can see the plot twist being centered around the NPC demeanor change, but the specifics of returning them to a living status and the location being a requirement might be seen as the DM forcing the plot once the reveal has been made. I can get behind allowing them to have access to the tools to do so, and should they choose to ressurrect the NPC on site, I might suggest that the ordeal of coming back from the dead could possibly delay the immediate return of the previous personality. Maybe let this one drag out over the course of a couple of days/weeks of in game time.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Does the NPC aid the party at all? When I play lost mine of Phandelver, the players latched on to the goblin Droop, and I have no idea why, so I gave him a proper character sheet and he joined in with fights, providing some damage and aid, but no where near enough to really make it an extra party member. He died in a big fight and the players couldn't resurrect him fast enough (much to my dismay, I thought I had finally got rid of him!). Maybe let the players decide what his actions could be in combat, or give him some minor healing capabilities so he is an asset to them, not just a plot device. Maybe they go to a dungeon and he knows how to say a magic spell to open a door to some treasure, but he dies mid-dungeon triggering your plot twist. I really like this idea, I might have to steal it as I have an NPC guiding my party every so often when they venture back to the main city.
I would say, try to pick up clues whether they have latched onto them, do they cure wounds them if they take damage in a fight or leave them to sort themselves?